Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 1/9/26

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, guys. Thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9, right here at the New York Stock Exchange. We begin today with stocks at record highs. Here's the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. We have been positive, as you know, all day long. Following the release of this morning's jobs report, there is your picture. It's the Russell. That's been the story of the week. It's outpacing the other major averages and really reminds us about this rally, one that's been driven by everything other than mega-cap tech. We'll have a report on that coming up. We're also going to ask. ask Professor Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School whether it's a sign of even bigger things to come. He'll join us momentarily. Elsewhere, chip stocks like Micron and Broadcom, well, they are very strong today. Vistra and Acoe surging on that power deal with META. Lockheed upgraded and that stock is on the move today as well. There it is 5%. Our talk of the tape, the market at record highs. In what's been a very strong first week, for a closer look, let's bring in our experts. Courtney discretionary. Sima Modi on industrials, Leslie Picker on the banks. Court, we start with you. Thanks, Scott. While the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey improved, it's still near

historically low levels, but investors in consumer discretionary stocks are not deterred. In fact, the consumer discretionary sector is up 4 percent so far this year. The XRT retail ETF more specifically up and even stronger, 5.6 percent versus the broader S&P 500. That's up, but just around 2 percent year to date. Now, among the biggest winners in discretion. this year related to home. Home billers like Lanar and Pulte, along with William Sonoma and Lowe's likely because mortgage rates are expected to continue to fall. And President Trump delayed those furniture and cabinet tariffs to 2027 in the early days of this year. Now, casinos that are among the biggest losers here today in the discretionary sector, Las Vegas Sands, NGM resorts,

and Wynn all down between 9 and 2 percent so far in 2026. Scott? All right, court. Thanks so much for that. Let's send it now to Sima Modi for a look at the industrials. Seema. Hey, Scott, the industrial sector is seeing a lot of renewed optimism. The sector is up 4% in 2026, which, by the way, is the best start to the year in 16 years. Jake Levinson, Amelius Research, says the market is becoming more aware of the energy and industrial equipment needed to build out AI infrastructure, a point that NVIDIA, CEO Jensen Wong, did discuss at CES this week, as at Caterpillar, CEO Joe Creed. Now, among the best performers in the XLI is United Rentals on this bet. that reshoring in America will drive non-residential construction demand.

And, Scott, the recent uptick in geopolitics, Venezuela, sending defense names higher like L3 Harris and Lockheed Martin, both up over 12% in January, Scott. Okay, Seema, thanks for that. Now to Leslie Picker for a look at the big banks. Les? Hey, Scott, yeah, big banks continuing their gains in 2026 after outperforming the S&P two years in a row, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, each up more than four and a half percent in the first. first week of the new year as investors really remain bullish on the prospect of a further boon in capital markets activity. The overall environment, though, with deregulation and steeper

yield curve and stable economy and, again, more dealmaking has led analysts to expect the strongest earnings backdrop for the sector since before the financial crisis. So we'll get a fresh look next week with fourth quarter earnings on deck. Scott? Okay. Leslie Picker, thank you very much for that. Now let's bring in the Wharton School, Professor of Finance, Wisdom Tree, Chief Economist, Jeremy Siegel. Professor, welcome back. It's nice to talk to you. Good afternoon, Scott. Professor, I'm also going to just tell you right off the top here that we may break away from our conversation to go to the White House as the president is meeting with those energy

executives. That could happen at any time. So bear with me, please, if we have to do that. But what do you make of what we have termed the everything but tech rally to start this year? Yeah, what's there not to like? I wish we would have gotten news about the tariffs today, maybe tomorrow. I'd like to know who our new Fed chief is going to be, another January announcement. And then finally, you know, let's make sure we get the government not closing down at the end of the month. When those three things out of the way, I mean, it's blue skies above for the market to be sure. Professor, I'm going to go just show a picture here of the room at the White House.

The president has just entered, and he is making the rounds about to sit down, of course, surrounded by members of his cabinet, as well as those energy executives at the White House as he takes his seat now. I do want to listen in because this is a very important meeting happening today. Here's the president of the United States. It's a great honor among the biggest companies in the world. flying far and we're doing tremendous things. Our country is doing very well.

You saw the numbers that got released today, yesterday. Deficits cut way, way, way back at levels that nobody's ever seen before, setting records. And the numbers coming into our country are unprecedented. And we're doing really well. We had a situation three days ago with Venezuela, and we're getting along extremely well with the people of Venezuela, both the people

and the people that are running Venezuela. I just want to thank our military. What they've done is incredible. That was considered unprecedented to go into a military fort with thousands of soldiers and others, and to come in with 152 planes going every which way. And very much way. And very, very, very, rapid speeds and helicopters, and you come out with no deaths and the loss of no equipment. It was pretty amazing. Nobody's seen anything like it. I was called by the leaders of numerous countries. I won't go into which ones, but the biggest and the strongest, and they said that was

very impressive. They were all impressed. But today I'm delighted to welcome almost two dozen of the biggest and most respected oil and guest executives in the world to the White House. It's an honor to be with them. We have many others that were not able to get in. I said if we had a ballroom, we'd have over 1,000 people. Everybody wanted it.

I never knew your industry was that big. I never knew you had that many people in your industry. But here we are. And in fact, if you look, come to think of it, well, I got to look at this myself. Wow, what a view. This is the door to the ballroom. What did you have? Unusual time to look, but I figure we might as well do.

If the fake news would like to go back and take a look, you can, but you'll see a very big foundation that's moving. We're ahead of schedule on the ballroom and under budget. It's going to be, I don't think there'll be anything like it in the world, actually. I think it'll be the best we want from. This is, as you know, our biggest room, which would seat 100 for dinner, maybe. If you're lucky, if you're nice and tight, and the ballroom will seat many. And it'll also take care of the inauguration with bulletproof glass, drone-proof ceilings,

and everything else, unfortunately, that today you need. So we're going to discuss how these great American companies can help rapidly rebuild Venezuela's dilapidated oil industry and bring millions of barrels of oil production. to benefit the United States, the people of Venezuela, and the entire world. And yesterday, the number is 30 million barrels. I can't even, is that a correct number? 30 million barrels. Do you hear that, Peter?

Of oil was given to us by Venezuela. That's a lot of oil. It's about $4 billion worth, and it's on our way to, it's on its way to the United States right now. And we want to thank Venezuela for that. And we're working very well with them, obviously, or they wouldn't have been so generous. But they respect us, again. They didn't respect us at all before. So that's money that goes to the United States.

Some will go to Venezuela. And some will go to the oil companies, but not that, because that's already been extracted. So you're not getting any of that. But when you start extracting, you'll get what it's a tremendous reason. reserves among the biggest in the world. Some people say it is the biggest in the world. And we're going to be working with Venezuela. We're going to be making the decision as to which oil companies are going to go in that we're going to allow to go in. I'm going to cut a deal with the companies. We'll probably do that today or very shortly thereafter with Chris and Doug. And we're dealing with the country. So we're empowered to make that deal. And you have total safety, total security.

One of the reasons you couldn't go in is you had no guarantees, you had no security, but now you have total security. It's a whole different Venezuela, and Venezuela is going to be very successful, and the people of the United States are going to be big beneficiaries because we're going to be extracting, you know, numbers of, in terms of oil, like, you know, few people have ever seen, actually. So you're dealing with us directly. You're not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don't want you to deal with Venezuela. Let me thank Vice President J.D. Vance, who's doing a fantastic job. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, likewise, a fantastic job. I have good people. I like them better than my first group. But we had a great – despite that, we had a great first term.

We had some great people there, too, by the way. But we had a great first term. We had the greatest economy and the history of our country in the first term, but this is blowing it away. And you haven't seen anything yet. Everyone's been shocked by the numbers, 5.4% GDP. And that's despite the fact that we were badly hurt by the Democrat shutdown, of which they'd like to see if they could shut it down again. Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergam, who's fantastic.

Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, recommended by Doug as being the greatest oil man anywhere in the world. Because I wanted Doug for that job. Energy, and Doug said, no, sir, there's a man. man named Chris Wright. I said, who the hell is Chris Wright? He said he's the most talented oil man anywhere in the world. I doubt you can get him because typically oil men make a lot of money and women. They make a lot of money, but Chris came. You took one of the greatest salary cuts probably in history, Chris. But he's a fantastic person. He loves our country and many other important members of this team. And I want to thank them for their efforts. As you know, last week, the United

States Armed Forces performed one of the most spectacular military operations in American history, apprehending the outlaw dictator Nicholas Maduro for his crimes against the United States, crimes for which he has now been indicted at his in federal court awaiting trial, and he killed many people, millions of people, actually, and allowed jails, prisons, mental institutions, and same. in asylums, drug dealers, drug addicts to pour into our country totally unchecked because of sleepy Joe Biden's policy of open borders. The stupidest thing I've ever seen.

We're getting them all out. The departure of Maduro makes it possible an incredible future for both nations, Venezuela and the United States in which we will more closely integrate the economies of two major energy powers in the Western Hemisphere. energy coming out of Venezuela was very small. One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices. We have people now getting gasoline for $1.99, $1.96, $1.95, $1.92 yesterday, somebody. And it used to be $3.5, $4, $5 a gallon. Think of that, $1.99. Decades ago, the United States built Venezuela's oil industry, a $1 million. A gallon. A dollar 99. Decades ago, the United States built

Venezuela's oil industry. tremendous expense with American skill, technology, know-how, and dollars. But those assets were stolen from us. And we had presidents said nothing about it. This president is much different than your other presidents. They did nothing about it. They stole it. Some of the people in this room were a little bit younger when that happened. But not that much younger. It wasn't that long ago. But they stole our assets like we were babies. and the United States said absolutely nothing about it. So now we're doing everything about it. Now we're doing 500% about it.

But it's a long time after the act took place. So they stole from us, and it was taken by socialists and communists at the time, and Venezuela was going bad, really bad. And as much oil as they have, they're producing almost nothing, almost nothing, which is just a system. So we're really, if you look at it, we're taking back what was taken from us.

They took our oil industry. We built that entire oil industry. Started a long time ago, but they took it, and they were very ungracious to this country. But now they're being very nice. American companies will have the opportunity to rebuild Venezuela's rotting energy infrastructure. We're going to continue to monitor those remarks from the president, his meeting with those big, energy executives in the White House as President Trump makes the case to them about investing heavily billions of dollars into Venezuela. Some skepticism perhaps on the side of big oil,

on what the return on those invested dollars would be, not to mention the safety and security issues that may exist in Venezuela here forward to president on that note saying, quote, you'll have total safety and total security. as you know, has been outside the White House for the better part of the day leading up to this meeting. Is this, Brian, exactly what that is, a sales pitch from the president to these oil and energy executives to invest heavily in Venezuela and help rebuild their infrastructure? Yes, and what he said at the very top of those comments, Scott, was key for ExxonMobil and more importantly for Conoco Phillips, and I'll tell you why very quickly.

Exxon Mobil and Conoco, they were in Venezuela in 2007. There was an argument, a fight, a bad negotiation, whatever you want to call it. They were basically expelled out of the country slash chose to leave by Chavez. They're owed billions. Conoco Phillips won about $9 billion in a legal judgment against Venezuela, but they have not collected because the country, of course, is poor. In fact, it owes $60 billion to China. What President Trump said at the very top, he said,

we'll pay these American oil companies back with Venezuela and oil money, but not from the money from the oil that we just were given by Venezuela. We can only get that money back or they can from new oil production. I think that was a pretty clear message to Conoco and ExxonMobil that, hey, we'll help you recover some of the money that the nation of Venezuela owes you, but first, you're going to have to go back into Venezuela and recoup production. So those are two stocks to look at. I think Scott, I would look at a Valero. I know the stock moved big earlier in the week. So today it's not moving much. There are a refiner that could handle a lot of the heavier sour crude Venezuela has. Their CEO, by the way, is in the building or the White House behind us here. And then the SLB, formerly known as Schlumberzeh, their Chevron's partner on the ground. The services companies, them and HAL, a Baker Hughes, BKR, they're the ones that would have to go in first. and a kind of like a surgeon perform that triage on the Venezuelan oil industry, which not only is dilapidated, but barely getting 900,000 barrels a day out,

but it's also an environmental risk because things are so shoddy. So look at an HAL, SLB, BKR on the services side, XOM, CVX, COP on the oil major side, and then a VLO, and to lesser extent of PSX on the refining side. I hope I got all my tickers correct. Yeah, you probably did. We'll cycle through those, but let me just ask you, the hesitation that I had mentioned, or at least the skepticism maybe is a better word.

Is it more related to what the return on investment would be, and what degree does safety and security play into it? Because the president highlighted that rather high up in his remarks. Venezuela oil is extremely cheap what they call at the wellhead, Scott. In other words, to actually just take oil out of the ground. because Venezuela is an impoverished nation would be inexpensive. But to your point, the ROIC return invested capital, that's going to have a lot of security layer going in there.

And that's, I think, the natural tension in that room. Everybody's going to smile and they're going to talk about oil and gas prices, but at 58, 59 bucks a barrel for WTI, is that margin opportunity worth the risk and investment? Let me just quickly put numbers in a perspective. Conoco Philips building a giant new facility in Alaska called Willows, 180,000 barrels a day. So not a huge production out of it. That facility, Scott, is $9 billion.

So if you're talking about an Alaska facility for $9 billion at $180,000 barrels a day, to get 5 or $700,000 more barrels a day out of Venezuela is going to cost billions of dollars, not just to get going, but to maintain as. well. So I think that's going to be the natural tension, that pricing perspective, and that margin opportunity in the country. To your point, Scott. Brian, thank you very much for your reporting. We'll come back to you as needed, go back into the room as needed as well. Once we do perhaps start hearing from some of those executives in the room, the vice president, of course, is speaking right now. But we'll monitor all of that. Professor Siegel, I bring you back in, not specifically

on the meeting that we are just watching, or the... commentary from Brian Sullivan, but on the notion of this everything rally to start this year but technology and energy is a good place to add that to the conversation. The fact that energy's done well, industrials have done well, materials have done well, and discretionary has done well among others. Is that a sign of even bigger things to come as this year progresses? Yes, Scott, I would like to mention on what's going on in Venezuela. I would I would hope that President Trump would talk about returning power to the true winners of the last presidential election. Moshado Gonzalez that was stolen by Maduro and his criminal group, which appears to be negotiating with them.

If we could get power back to the people there with U.S. involvement, I think that would be the best. Not, anyway, what's going on with oil, I think actually what has happening in Iraq is much more important to near term for oil than what's going to be happening in Venezuela. We all know that's a long-term issue. That being said, lower oil prices, you know, is good for everyone. The turn you talked about, the broadening of the market that we talked about for two or three years. I mean, basically, I think, two forces, lower short-term interest rates is one of the forces, broadening of the AI, being able to avoid either the higher tariffs, the restrictions on the labor force. And the president, Trump was right.

I mean, the numbers on GDP in the fourth quarter, the estimate so far are really spectacular. No one, I don't know economists could have predicted 5% plus. They lowered it a little bit from what President Trump just mentioned, but it's still estimate over 5%. Now that will be revised, but with that government shutdown, if you would have asked three or four months ago, you know, could we have achieved four and a half plus GDP growth in that quarter? I wouldn't have said so, and I don't know any economists that would have.

So there's strong momentum, really strong momentum, going into 2026. And again, those little bumps I mentioned at the beginning of the hour, we get through those, and there are blue skies ahead. I think those blue skies are at least in part due to the fact. And certainly if you look at these other sectors of the market, that the earnings performance from them, from the areas outside of tech, are going to be very strong. Estimates are high.

some suggest maybe they're too high. And not to say that any of those other areas are going to be able to outpace their earnings growth of the mega-cap stocks, but nonetheless, they will do so enough that that is why these stocks are starting to perform and could have some staying power. You buy that? I buy that. And with reasonable PE. So their PEs are either going to stay the same or likely expand. Now, the growth rate of the earnings on the MAG-7 and,

And those tech are certainly much higher, but those PEs are also much higher. So, you know, and I think there's competition, breakthrough type of threats on AI that, you know, who's going to have the next breakthrough that's going to, you know, thrash the profits of a competitor. That's important to think about in that. But the other stocks are using AI. They're using those lower interest rates. They're using the, really, the cloud, which is another factor that many of those companies

have not used fully and are beginning to use to bring those profits up. And once you bring those profits up, you can bring those 13, 14, 15 pees up three or four notches. And that's why I predict that they will beat on return the MAG7, even with the MAG7, even with the MAG-7 and related tech, growing faster in earnings. Oh, wow.

Let's expand the conversation if we could, Professor. I'd like to bring in now High Tower's Stephanie Link and J.P. Morgan's Jack Manley. Steph, of course, is a CNBC contributor as well. It's nice to have you both. Steph, I'll just say what I said to you again. Say again what I said to you the other day. This is a Stephanie Link market. It's a Stephanie Link market because these are the exact stories that you've been telling us to focus on.

Yeah. And the exact stocks you've been telling us to buy into for many months in anticipation of what may exist this year. Yeah, and the economy is booming. I can say that, right? I mean, 5.1% is booming. And what was more important to me this week, Scott, was the productivity number at 4.9%. And the unit labor costs down 1.9%. That's a Goldie locks two numbers. That's good growth with lower inflation. The higher productivity is, the better it is for overall inflation. That's good for the consumer. The consumer is consuming. If you look at any of the credit card data, I look at the Chase credit card data, I look at the Visa credit card data. All the numbers are better than expected. Holiday sales are north of $1 trillion this last season.

And so sure, when the economy is growing, you want to own the cyclical stocks. They benefit as the economy grows. They're going to see a lot more juice than technology. Now, all that being said, the SMH, which is cyclical. It's also up 7%. So it's not all tech that is actually lagging, But the industrials, energy, financials, all doing quite well.

And then individual stocks, Scott. Like, I'm looking at Boeing up 7%. SLB up 17%. Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs up 4%. Like, this is really more stock-specific. And that's exciting for me. Let's see next week when we get the banks. Expectations are high.

But I think you're going to get, if you get buying opportunities, you absolutely want to buy. Deregulation hasn't even begun in this industry. Good that we have, Jack. It's good that we have you with us. because it's a bit of a counterpoint to some of the conversation about this big broad market move and the staying power of it. You suggest don't hold your breath for market leadership to turn on its head. We've heard this story before.

Is that what you are referring to? To some extent, I mean, I believe in this story of a rotation within the equity market, and there are a lot of reasons to be excited about it. I mean, the macro forces that you laid out are so strong and so powerful and very relevant to this broader story. The valuation side of things, when you're looking at those loftier, higher trading names in the AI space with a sort of lackluster return on investment from a lot of that CAPEX forcing attention elsewhere. You've got idiosyncratic forces out there, right, improve net interest margins for those big banks, the GOP revolutions that you're seeing with American pharma. And you've got those other parts of the equity market that, as we heard earlier, are benefiting from all this AI spend. But we were saying a lot of the similar things this time last year as well.

And while the performance of the equity market in 2025 was more diverse than what we saw in 24, which in turn was more diverse than what we saw in 23, the contribution of the Magnificent 7 to the overall index was a lot higher than what we were all anticipating in the beginning of 2025. And I just think that lesson is something to remember carry over into this year. Don't get too excited. That's fair. But I guess I would counter with we didn't have the level of confidence in the $493 earnings, potential. than that we do now for a variety of reasons. Oh, that's true. And that's why I'm more excited about it now than I was back then. But you'll remember at the start of 2025, earnings expectations were pretty lofty for the 493.

Maybe not as good as where they are right now, but better than what they ended up being. And I think that's sort of the issue, right? This idea that this rotation has legs, that the participation in the MAG 7 will decrease relative to where it was last year. I buy it. But are we talking about the 493 beating the MAG 7 this year? That I'm not entirely convinced. Yeah.

I mean, you do have exposure in parts of the MAG7. Sure. And given the continued strength and the earnings growth that I mentioned, there's no reason to believe that that trade's just going to suddenly fall apart, is there? I don't think so. I think the earnings are going to be very good. And the fact that they've lagged, that actually means that the setup into earnings is actually pretty good. I've been really interested to see Amazon up 6% year to date.

Big laggard last year. Now it's moving. Right. Finally, right? I mean, I've been waiting all year for it. And meta, I think also is a mean reversion as well. I really like the announcement that they did last night with regards to nuclear and Vistra and some of other companies. They're doing what they need to do to secure the power that they're going to need.

We just don't have enough power. That is absolutely still a very strong theme. So, Professor, everything seems fine and good. It is hard to find a bear. It honestly is. And that's worrisome to some people. Well, I was going to ask you about that. Aside from that fact itself, what are the principal risks, if any, that?

that are out there that we need to keep our eye on? Well, you know, I mean, long-term rates remaining reasonable. You know, I would say certainly staying below 450. If it went above 450, that would be a lot of pressure. One of the risks we talked about before, cybersecurity attacks on a much more massive basis than we've had so far, which have been damaging enough, but that could threaten our. financial system, maybe our military prepared to us.

We have to have defense against that, just as we do against any sort of military incursion. These are very important things that we have to make sure of. I don't see these things happening, but you know, you always have to be on alert. Anything that happened internationally, domestically, to trip up this bull market. You guys quickly, on that same topic, the one risk you would say that's out there? the Fed because they haven't gotten it right. Not being in a long time. Making a mistake, not being easy enough? What do you mean? I mean, I think that they are not going to be easy enough. I think inflation is going to come down more than people expect because of productivity.

Watch that productivity number. That's the key. And inflation's coming down. And the labor market is cooling. It's not collapsing. But I think they can do more. Yeah. I mean, it all does come back to the Fed. But if I'm going to add one thing in here, it's back to that AI story, right? which is that, look, we've got over roughly a trillion dollars in CAPEX from a very small handful of names over a very short period of time. They're not solving any trillion dollar problems just yet. And so far, that's been okay. But if all of a sudden it stops being okay, if we start diverting attention elsewhere, so much of this equity market, so much of this economy have hinged on that cap-ex story, it's something that I'm a little bit more nervous about. Okay, I appreciate the conversation.

Jack, thank you, step, thank you. Thanks for your patience. And also with some breaking news, it was nice to have you on the other side to talk about that, too. Professor Bewell. We'll see you soon. That's Professor Jeremy Siegel. By the way, a quick note, be sure to check out CNBC Pro, where Stephanie Link just laid out one of her top picks for 2026. The first of her pro picks this year, they're exclusive stock picks from CNBC contributors, and you can only get it on Pro. Go to CnBC.com slash pro to follow Steph and other great investors there, and we hope you'll do that. We're just getting started here. Up next, the Road to New Records,

top technician Jeff DeGraph. He charts the markets road ahead, plus the one, red hot part of the market where he says you might want to avoid he'll join us after the break all we are back stocks hitting record highs again today and what continues to be a strong early year tape so do the technical suggest even more gains are ahead let's bring in jeff de graf he is chairman and head of technical research at renaissance macro it's good to have you back i want to play off what i teased earlier so semis have been ripping it's been a great story in the market it's part of the story today micron broadcom I highlighted those already.

Your charts tell you, be careful. Why? Well, look, I think, and we're not big value players. We find value is useful, maybe 10, 15% of the time. But, you know, we're up against, we've had a lot of pull forward. We're up against valuation levels that are similar to 2000, above that on an absolute basis, close to that on a relative basis. And, you know, I just think that we have to be careful on discounting kind of the

the wide-eyed optimism that's out there right here right now. These are good charts. Don't get me wrong. These are still uptrens. And if things are expensive and they're uptrends, we'll still own them. But we're obviously tentative on adding money. We're looking for corrections. I think it's going to be a much bumpier road in 2026 because they're price to perfection than just smooth sailing. And I think there's other opportunities in the market. I think there's plenty of opportunities. I would just be a little bit more careful with the 70s right here. I mean, one of the issues I think that makes it more difficult is that there seem to be a lot of uptrend, uptrends, right? You look at a lot of sectors that are off to great starts.

And maybe that makes some people cautious. Maybe it makes some nervous. But on the other hand, if they're lasting trends, you don't want to miss out either. 100%. Trends are important. And look, I think for longevity in this business, if you're not a trend follower, you won't be here long. That's the way it works. And so you hit the nail on the head, though.

there are a lot of uptrends. I think one of the things that's just differentiating 2026, as we see it right here, is we're looking for things that are powerful, have breadth, but are just starting to emerge. And I'd say health care is one of those areas where we're seeing very, very good trends, very, very good breadth. And I mean, we're talking about having to go back to the late 1970s to find the type of negative alpha generation that's been dominant in health care over the last three to five years. And now these are just starting to wake up. And I think there's a lot of opportunity there. So, you know, we're advising clients that look, when we get breakdowns, when we see trend changes in tech or some of these extended names that are expensive, use that money to then

fund some of these health care names that are breaking out and really coming out of these massive base formations that have sustainability. A couple other things before I let you go. Bitcoin, even in a risk on tape isn't doing that great. Now, maybe that's because the NASDAQ isn't doing as well as the others. I'm not sure. You can tell me what the charts tell you there. What do you think that's about? What do you think that's about? You know, it's a good question. What it's about? I'm not in the narrative business, so I'm not sure what it's about. Because certainly gold, if you're talking about digital gold, gold still acts well, silver acts well, all these kind of quote unquote stores of act well. I'm not exactly sure what's going on there. But it does not look good. The trend changed

in our view. There is resistance at 100,000. We got oversold. It kind of bounced. I mean, it gave us about what we'd expect. We thought it'd be a little bit more. But just the the tepidness of that bounce tells us that there's more underlying pressure there. I think we're going to see probably 65,000, something like that in Bitcoin before the years up. And I think it's a first quarter, maybe a second quarter event. But I think there's more to go on the downside there. Wow. So the chart just doesn't look great. That's going to surprise a lot of people. Jeff, I got a bounce. We have breaking news and all of that. And we'll have you back soon with certainty. I appreciate your time. That's Jeff DeGraph.

Still ahead, Rich Saperstein. He is one of this nation's top ranked financial advisors. He maps out his playbook for 2026. What is he telling clients right now? I'm sure they're asking a lot of questions. He'll tell you next. All right, we're back. Should you lean in even more to this record-setting market?

That's surely a question our next guest is getting from his clients. Richard Sapperstine is the founding principal and CIO of Treasury Partners and one of this country's top financial advisors. He is here, as you see at post-9. What are you telling them? They're asking you that question. What do you say? Yes, we're in a CapEx super cycle. We've got $350 billion of tax cuts. The Fed is accommodative. It's adding to its balance sheet. The overall landscape for owning common stocks is absolutely tremendous right now. Okay. That being said, you have been firm when I have asked you before about where to lean in in this market. You have made the case repeatedly, including the last time we were together. Mega caps, mega caps, mega caps. caps and plays that are into the AI area, like Vistra, right? Which you've been in a long time.

The market seems to be voting in the early part of this year that this is at least for right now in almost everything but tech rally. How do you assess that? So within the context of our portfolio, let's call it 20 stocks, 18 stocks. We have... Pretty concentrated. We are very concentrated. So in that context, we have banks, so financial intermediaries.

and we added some drugs recently, okay? But I think if you look at why we're overweight, large-cap tech, in the last five years, earnings have been up 270%. Oh, yeah. All right, but the rest of the market is just 49%. Now, why would I try to attack away from that earnings growth where three hyperscalilots have $550 billion in operating cash flow? Okay.

I like the cash flow, Scott. I know you do. And nobody can argue with you about the power of that earnings growth from the mega caps. It is now, and it will continue to outpace the most of the other parts of the market. However, the catch-up can be quite dramatic. What was a lackluster level of earnings growth from the 493 or parts of it can be dramatic. And that's why those stocks can have such a big comeback as to why the market maybe has the makeup that it does. Does that make sense?

Agreed. There are names that one can look at for a value. We've been looking at Procter & Gamble. You look out that stock has come down quite a bit. Live Nation could benefit very well from a rising US economy, certain drug stocks. But for us, we want to follow where there's growth. We don't want to go into industries where they may recover or they may benefit from a strong economy. We want to stick with where that super cycle is right now, because that's what's

worked. What do I do with financials, for example? How do they fall in your perspective and something like that? They benefit from a recovery economy, increased loan growth, deregulation, the whole story. Plus, we think the yield curve could steepen this year, where the Fed will cut rates, will get a little bit of a concern on inflation. You'll have the 10-year move a little bit higher, and that'll benefit the financials. We own J.P. Morgan, Bank America, and Wells Fargo. You can also look at right here the intermediaries, KKR, APO, OWL. Why don't you own Goldman Sachs? We do own Goldman. Oh, you're going, yeah. You just forgot to mention that? Yeah, forgot. You forgot the best one of the years so far? Yeah, we've owned there for a long time.

Yeah, I've got to pull it out of you. I have a good dentist over here. I should come in here with a list. For real. I mean, what's the risk then? You laid out a bullish case at the very beginning. I just had this conversation with the professor and Jack of JPM and Steph, of course. And Steph said the Fed is the one risk that she would be worried about, that they don't ease enough. What do you think? No, I don't think we need easing for the market to go higher. My concern is what happened this week, where we take out a leader of a country, then we tell the defense industry no dividends or return to capital,

and we tell institutional investors you can't buy homes. I mean, that is interming, interspersing with, you know, American capitalism. And I think the- Oh, so you're worried about that. Well, you know, that's a tail-risk event. I think it'll self-correct if the market actually recognizes it and says, hey, we don't like that intrusion in the capital markets. But who's going to say that? Well, the market should really sell off on that news. Historically, that would be a bad thing for stocks.

And so it didn't happen this week. There's a free pass. We'll see how it continues. Well, I mean, it didn't happen really because when you tell defense companies, you can't do buybacks, but then raise the budget. But an hour later, you want to raise the budget for the companies. Obviously, they're going to go more towards raise the budget than they are towards can't buyback stock. Right. It's a good story.

We'll take it and then we'll giveeth, right? But the fact is that the markets, the overall landscape for investing is very strong right now. And that's what the markets really signal. I want to ask you one more question about the idea of whether free market capitalism is being. We asked a question yesterday with Walt Isaacson, whether free market capitalism, as we knew it, is dead. Because of those issues, telling companies what they can do. The chief executive of the country meddling in the business of corporate America and into the boardroom in a way that we're just not used to seeing. and how that might influence how CEOs might behave in the future, the kinds of decisions they would make,

the amount of returned capital that companies may see, that you may see as an investor. I mean, are you thinking about changing the way you view this whole idea of investing in this narrative? No, because we have a very pro-business administration. And think about the ease of permitting that will impact oil companies, the deregulation, the more moderate touch of the FCC or regulatory concern. So I think there's a lot of positives we have to look at, but clearly it's going to impact capitalism, stocks. It's not changing how we invest, okay? But I think it's very important to understand that this administration is pro-business. The overall stock market will benefit from that.

Okay, we'll leave it there. Rich, thanks. We'll talk to you soon. That's Richard Safferstein. Thank you. Back here with us at post night. Up next, housing stocks, they're higher in today's session. We'll talk about what is driving that action coming up in the zone. We're now in closing bell market zone. CnBC Senior Markets commentator, Mike Santoli and Newberger Berman, Shannon Sacocia. They are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Biffa Stevens tells us what's behind the bounce in nuclear names today. And Diana Oleg is tracking the action in housing stocks as well. But Michael, I'll come to you. So closer to 7,000. closer to 50K than 49 on the Dow. Yes. I mean, the market continues to sort of answer. I wouldn't say there's a lot of skeptics out there, but this idea that it was over-relying on one particular sector or theme than another, it's not really costing this market on a day when you had the cyclical leadership,

just sort of cool off a little bit. Maybe it's a little bit fatigued. It didn't get every signal it wanted from the jobs report and any Supreme Court tariff decision. and all of a sudden, the big cap tax that have been resting take the four. I do think we're at a moment now. We've come strong out of the gate. It's time to see whether we're going to get into kind of late cycle overheat mode

or if optimism is going to get a little bit too excessive in the near term. But otherwise, the market's actual behavior isn't giving you much to worry about. All right, Pippa, tell us about nuclear. Well, Scott, Oklo and Vistar are jumping after ranking deals with META to power the tech giant's data centers. Now, Vistra owns commercial-scale nuclear reactors and under the 20-year agreement will sell power to META for the financial backing, extending the lifespan and increasing power output at Pennsylvania and Ohio plants. The agreement with Oklo and privately held Terra power will help the companies develop their small modular reactors.

This is just the latest in a string of deals between big tech and nuclear as hyperscalers. Look for emissions-free power for data centers, and the announcement is lifting other power producers, like Constellation and Talent, as well as SMR developer, New Scale Power. Scott? Okay, Pippett, thank you. Diana, on housing. Tell us more. Well, look, the average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage dropped sharply. 22 basis points to 5.99%. And it hasn't been that low since the start of February 2023, according to Mortgage News Daily.

Now, this came after President Trump posted on social media late yesterday that he is instructing mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion worth of mortgage-backed bonds. So the so-called MBS. Now, that gave stocks in the residential housing sector a big boost. The home building ETF ITB up over 6%. That includes names like Lenar, Pulte, and D.R. Horton. But even home remodeling names like Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, and Lowe's. And take a look at Open, which will buy your home from you directly.

It's been super volatile lately, but a big lift on that today. We're already seeing some MBS pull back a little bit from this morning. And again, we still don't have any idea when and how this bond buying will actually happen. Back to you. All right, Diana, thank you very much for that. All right, Shan, some up this week. We're obviously off to a good start, okay? Week to date, the Russell's up near 5%.

That's a, you know, a stunning move in and of itself in the first week of the year. But it's been pretty broad. Yeah, the enthusiasm that we're seeing across the market, Scott, I think, is indicative. of this expectation of re-accelerating growth. We had obviously a payroll's missed today, but this low-hiring, low-firing environment. And the fact of the matter is, is that if you're looking at expanding out into these other sectors, looking at the areas where we're anticipating accelerating earnings growth into 2026, there's a lot of places to play that aren't quite as as heavily valued or expensive as large-cap tech. I heard your prior guest comments. And I think,

the one thing we really have to remind ourselves of is that there's plenty to potentially upset the momentum and trend here. But I think the important things that the market is based on right now, it's not based on a Fed cut in January. It's not necessarily based on this catalyst of tax cuts and tax refunds that are coming in April. There really is fundamental economic momentum that's driving this broadening out and is less of a valuation or a mean reversion trade than some of the headfakes we saw last year. Yeah. What about next week?

We got earnings coming up late in the week, and we've been making the case here. Okay, you want all these other areas to the market to do well, and you want them to continue to do well? Well, they better meet the moment. They better live up to the hype. Yeah, I think the one thing that we're really looking at, Scott, is, again, we're not going to argue that there could be, from an absolute perspective, still strong earnings growth in mega-cap tech. Actually, that would be great for the market. But what we're anticipating is as we're looking at S&P 500 expectations, if you're thinking about high single digit, low double digit for other sectors, financials have been on fire, absolutely.

But if you look at the potential for improvement in healthcare, for instance, the managed care companies getting a lid on their medical loss ratios, for instance, if you look at industrials and some of the enthusiasm around not only AI, but also kind of cyclical rebirth, if you will. And CapEx, I think that there are going to be some really good signs, not just from an earnings perspective, but also from a sentiment and messaging perspective in the guidance for the second half of the year. Yeah, what do you think about that, Mike? I think it all makes sense. I mostly just get uncomfortable when there seems to be an excess of certainty or perceived certainty.

And it doesn't mean that something definitely is going to go wrong. But if you just look back to last January, we were in a similar mode. We were all guns blazing, had been since the start of the year. And then Deep Sea comes along, and that morphs into this funky momentum on wind that all of a sudden turns into a financial tightening because of the tariffs, and then it's a recession scare. I don't expect any of that happening. But the stage being set for adverse surprise is everybody thinks there's no way but the best way possible for us to turn out. You think it's just a matter of time before money starts flowing back to the mega caps? I mean, are we kidding ourselves here?

I think it could be one of those deals where it ends up being kind of like there's a pressure valve. And when they get overheated, it can go elsewhere. I think the best case scenario is what happened last year, which is most of the value is added by mega caps. The index benefits a lot from that. But a majority of stocks at least participate. Now, last year, you had a very small minority of stocks beat the S&P 500, but most stocks were up. So I still think you could have some maybe the inverse version of that where mega cap lags a little bit, but most stocks can capitalize on a better earnings picture.

But I don't think this bull market is going to just pass the baton to non-tech, and it's going to be up and away on the index level. Usually, the theme that got you here three years in is the one that's got to finish you out. You believe that, Shan? I mean, that seems to make perfect sense, right? I mean, who are we kidding here that if this looks to be the so-called everything rally, then everything is going to rally. Will mega caps lag a little bit? Okay, I can believe that. but you want to tell me that they're going to dramatically underperform.

I don't know if I'm willing to go there. Well, and I don't think you should if you actually believe in this accelerating growth story. I mean, why would there not be, you know, some of that going towards continued AI cap-backs and free cash for generation for these mega-cap tech companies? Scott, I think what's most important is the dispersion. Not all of these tech companies are going to benefit. Just like in other sectors, we're not going to see that. That dispersion is going to be really critical.

And I think you've seeded in the large-cap techs. I think you're going to continue to see it in different sectors or industries within technology. And that's really the piece where you can be a little bit more tactical, thoughtful, prescriptive in building out your tech allocation for 20 seconds. I appreciate you being with us. If I can hear what you just said, that would have been even better. But unfortunately, it's a little loud down here at this moment. They're happy because this bull market has had a great first week of 2026.